Recently, notable attempts have been made to incorporate electronics into automobiles and other vehicles, especially to incorporate electronics into the signal processing system of the control unit, the operating system, and other major areas. Accordingly, there is a tendency for an increase in the wiring work for the power supply etc. in vehicles. Especially, the bus-bars (basic wiring as power supply lines) for power supply have become thicker and have become harder to arrange. In addition, it is necessary to always meet the dimensional demands due to the limited space for installation in vehicles.
In view of this situation, the electrical connection box used in an automobile etc. generally comprises a pair of cases which fit with each other, a bus-bar as the basic wiring housed inside the pair of cases, and a connector housing attached so as to surround a plurality of terminal pieces formed projecting out from the bus-bar and connecting with connectors from the outside.
In this electrical connection box, the increase of the auxiliaries installed in automobiles has led to a need to increase the circuits corresponding to these auxiliaries, so a plurality of bus-bars serving as basic wiring used built inside it are now being provided or the width of the plurality of terminal pieces extending from the body of the bus-bar is being reduced so as to increase the density of the connectors to be connected with from the outside.
When reducing the width of the plurality of terminal pieces, however, the strength of the terminal pieces declines, so the terminal pieces deform when pushed in the insertion direction at the time of connecting with connectors or the arrangement of the plurality of terminal pieces is easily disturbed. Accordingly, in an electrical connecting box using a bus-bar having narrow width terminal pieces, the plurality of terminal pieces are prevented from deforming or the arrangement is prevented from being disturbed by separately providing supporting members to support each of the plurality of terminal pieces.
Accordingly, in an electrical connection box using a bus-bar having narrow width terminal pieces, there has been the problem that when the shape of the bus-bar differs due to the grade or destination, even with the same electrical connection box, it is necessary to provide supporting members matching with it and therefore the structure of the case or the connector housing becomes complex resulting in the increase of the manufacturing costs or the number of parts increases resulting in a higher cost for parts control.
Furthermore, a bus-bar is generally formed by punching it out from a metal sheet by a press in the shape of the body of the bus-bar and the plurality of terminal pieces. The terminal portion is then formed by bending the plurality of terminal pieces into predetermined shapes. However, with narrow width terminal pieces, there have been the problems of the pitch between the parallel provided terminals being disturbed or the terminal pieces deforming during this bending operation.